


Green for Renewal

by Sholio



Category: The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Gift Giving, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-17 21:55:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21950305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: There is a plant on Jessica's desk. And she definitely didn't put it there.
Comments: 36
Kudos: 131
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Green for Renewal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilacsigil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsigil/gifts).



There was a plant in her office.

Jessica stopped in the doorway. The plant sat ominously on the edge of her desk, a bright splash of color in a room that was otherwise mostly colored in shades of New York grime. It could not have looked more out of place if it had been waving a sign that said NOTICE ME.

It seemed like an inefficient bomb delivery system, but still ... she approached with great caution, leaving the door open so she had an escape route if needed. She circled it and cautiously poked at the red and green foliage with a pencil. It was a very large, very healthy poinsettia, all but bursting out of its pot with floral vigor.

There was a card stuck in the pot. Jessica used the tip of the pencil to open it.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! it said in scribbled handwriting that was not even vaguely familiar.

Misdelivered? Did she have a stalker?

Jessica picked it up very carefully and carried it down the hall. She banged on a particular door.

"The building had better be on fire," Malcolm said when he opened the door. He was wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. 

"Did you send me this?" Jessica demanded, shoving it at him.

"Uh ... no." He took it because the alternative was being knocked over. "Is this a poinsettia?"

"Congratulations, it's now yours." Then she realized there were other ominous possibilities, such as a slow-acting poison in the leaves or gas-releasing capsules in the soil. "Never mind, it's mine," she said, snatching it back.

"Always nice talking to you, Jessica," Malcolm said, and shut the door firmly.

*

She considered just throwing it in the dumpster to be on the safe side, but decided to take it to Matt's place because Matt could probably tell her if there was anything dangerous in it; his heightened senses made him a one-man crime lab. Damn her curiosity anyway. If she had an enemy who was trying to kill her with plants, though, she really needed to know.

Three cabs passed her before one finally stopped. She wasn't sure if it was the scowl on her face scaring them off, or the fact that she was carrying a giant poinsettia. Either way, the driver she eventually got didn't ask any questions, just dropped her off without comment in front of a converted Hell's Kitchen warehouse. (It was, after all, New York.)

"Morning, Jessica," Matt said, opening the door. At least he, unlike Malcolm, was dressed; he was, in fact, adjusting his tie, and looked like he was about to head out for work.

"Did you --" Jessica began, and stopped at the sight of a very large and prominent plant on Matt's coffee table. This one wasn't a poinsettia. If her childhood memories were anything to go by, it was a Christmas cactus, a profusion of sprawling, spiny leaves and vaguely spiky-looking flowers. "Where'd that come from?"

"What, the plant? Danny," Matt said. "At least it smells like him."

"Is this from Danny too?" she demanded, holding out her plant.

"Yes," Matt said after a moment. "I think. No card?"

"There is a card, it's just not signed." She sighed. She _should_ have thrown the damn plant in the trash. "Why did he give us plants?"

"Holidays?" Matt said with a shrug.

"What? Why? Does this mean I'm supposed to give him something back?"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask him." He stepped back with a slight smile. "Coffee? I have to be out of here in fifteen to get to the courthouse, but if you want something ..."

What she wanted to do was not be carrying a poinsettia around Hell's Kitchen, but since that ship had sailed ... "Coffee. Sure." She put the plant on the end of Matt's counter. "Got anything to put in it?"

"I'm guessing you don't mean cream." He gestured at the cabinet above the sink. "Be my guest."

Jessica fished out a half-empty bottle of expensive-looking brandy. Very lawyerly. "Do you want a poinsettia?"

"It'll never survive," Matt said. "Do you want a ... whatever that is?"

"Christmas cactus, I think," Jessica said, and then realized she'd betrayed that she might know something about plants. "Or whatever. And no. I don't even want _this_ plant." She took the coffee he handed her, somewhat absently. "I wonder what Luke got?"

"You could ask him."

*

Luke had gotten a Christmas rose. It was sitting on the end of the Harlem's Paradise bar, looking very lost. Jessica plunked her poinsettia down next to it. She was the only person in the place, other than a couple of old guys playing cards at a table in the corner.

"Danny?" Luke said. 

"Danny," she sighed. "Want a poinsettia?"

"No. Want one of ... that?"

"Christmas rose. And _stop_ looking at me like that," she snapped. "Dorothy used to decorate. I know all the Christmas plants."

"How many Christmas plants are there?" 

"Don't ask." She scowled and spun the poinsettia around. 

It wasn't really Dorothy Walker that it reminded her of; that was the annoying thing. It made her think of childhood Christmases, of cookies and trees and presents bought by parents who had spent weeks carefully pumping her for ideas and reading her Santa letters.

But all of that was gone. Thinking about it didn't bring it back. She grimaced and shoved the poinsettia down the bar.

"This is so unfair," she complained. Luke handed her a cup of spiked coffee across the bar without being asked, and she wrapped her hands around it. "I don't _do_ gifts. It's not fair for someone to just start giving me things."

"Danny likes giving people things."

"Luke, I will _pay_ you to take this thing off my hands."

Luke laughed. "If you really don't want it, you could probably donate it somewhere."

"Who on earth is going to want a used poinsettia?"

"I don't know -- shelters, maybe? Give it away, throw it away. Danny's not going to know."

*

He wouldn't. But it looked like Luke and Matt were keeping _their_ stupid plants, for some reason. Peer pressure. That was the only explanation for why the plant was still sitting on her desk two days later when Danny came in, and looked incandescently cheerful at the sight of it.

"Shut up," Jessica said.

"I hadn't said anything yet."

"No, but you were going to."

Danny sat on the edge of her desk. "Do you like your plant?"

"It's going to die," Jessica said. "Malcolm's been watering it. I can't keep a plant alive. I can't even keep a Neopet alive."

"Sure, but in the meantime it's giving you lots of healthy oxygen and cleaning your office air and improving the energy flow of your office."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say any of that, because otherwise I'd have to improve the energy flow of my office by throwing you out the window," Jessica said. Danny just grinned. "Seriously, is _that_ why you gave us plants? Because you think we're not healthy enough?"

"Jessica, you live on alcohol and pizza."

"Pizza has all four food groups. Anyway, what do _you_ live on, green tea and quinoa or some junk like that? I'll stick with pizza, thanks."

"There was a sage at the monastery who claimed it was possible to transcend our earthly bodies and live on different colors of light."

"Yeah, how'd that work out for him?"

Danny smiled. "He ate from the same kettle of rice as the rest of us, so probably not all that well." He touched one of the poinsettia's bright leaves, and his face grew slightly pensive. "I guess that's part of the point, really. All our lives have been ... not really what we hoped they'd be, in various ways. We don't have much family. And it's just that plants are a symbol of life and renewal in a lot of traditions. Growth and nature and spring. And it seemed like ... I don't know ... I'm glad we found each other and I wanted to do something to show that. You don't have to give me anything back."

Jessica had to take a breath before she could say, "That's good. I wasn't planning to."

Danny laughed a little. "Merry Christmas and happy new year, Jessica."

"You too," she sighed.

He hopped off her desk, then turned back. "Oh, hey, Colleen and I are hosting a little get-together on New Year's Eve, and I was wondering -- Luke will be there, and Misty and Claire, and I'm hoping Matt'll come, but I haven't asked you yet --"

Jessica had an instant of flat panic. This ... _this_ was why she didn't want things like this -- Christmas presents, and party invitations. Something would come up, or she'd forget, or she'd just decide she wanted to stay in and/or was too drunk to go out -- it _always_ ended like that --

But then she looked at Danny, looking back at her hopefully, and it occurred to her that of his various party guests, it was extremely likely that at least one if not more of them would be delayed by last-minute crime-thwarting, and there was also a non-zero chance that Danny's party would be crashed by ninjas. Out of all the people in the world, this group of people probably _would_ understand if she couldn't make it. They were difficult people to disappoint because they all had equally weird lives of their own.

"I might be busy," she hedged.

"I know."

"I'm not bringing anything."

"Don't expect you to." He grinned. "There'll be food and booze. We'll probably have things ready to go around six or seven, but we expect people to trickle in and out all evening long. Colleen invited some people from the center too. So, uh, no pressure? But if you want to."

"Fine, whatever, I'm not saying I'll be there, so let me get back to work." 

Danny grinned, patted a leaf of the plant, and left.

She'd better mention to Malcolm that watering the plant was now his responsibility, because it wasn't like she could let the plant die _now._ She didn't want to deal with Danny's little puppy face when he came in and saw the dead stick that was how all her plants inevitably ended up. It might not be that much of a problem; Malcolm had showed up unasked to water it today and she'd heard him muttering something about fertilizer when he left.

She was going to have to get both of them something next year, wasn't she? _Damn_ it. She hoped gift cards were still a thing.


End file.
